First I’ll start off with the grass. I thought it could make a pretty neat looking pen/pencil holder. I wanted it to be long, so I’m going to cut the grass chunk in half.

First, take your balsa wood and cut two pieces twice as long as the grass and two pieces that are half as wide as the grass chunk.
If you buy wood that’s thin enough, you can probably use an xacto knife to cut it, but mine was JUST too thick, so I had to bust out my saw.
Hot glue the pieces together.
Once you have the walls glued together you can measure out another piece of wood for the bottom.
My wood was a tad big wider than the walls ended up being, so I cut the bottom a tiny bit longer so it sticks out about 1/8 inch around the bottom.
Now finish the wood however you want. I wanted the wood to be visible still, so I just sprayed it with some clear acrylic spray and then let that dry.
Cut the grass down.
When I test fitted the grass I noticed it sat a little bit lower than what I wanted…
…so I cut a piece of styrofoam to fit into the bottom to make it sit higher.
Glue the foam in.
Glue the foam in.
And then glue the grass in!
And now the pencil/pen holder is complete!

Now onto the succulent plants. I decided to make a little trio.

First, if you want to, paint the pots. I painted mine with about 3 coats of white paint and then used , surprise surprise, liquid gold leaf as an accent.
For the first one I just painted small circles around the pot, mostly towards the bottom. It kind of looks like confetti or something.
For the second one, first I painted a strip along the bottom. Then I went and added some verticle lines -different heights. And then topped them with little circles. They’re kind of like little plants or something.
For the third one I started by painting a thin strip around the bottom and then painted alternating big triangles and small triangles. Then I went and filled in the smaller triangles.
Once they’re dry, flip one over onto the styrofoam and trace around the lip of the pot.
Then draw a line about 1/4 inch in from the edge. Use your xacto knife to cut the circle out.
Use your knife to taper one of the edges of the foam. This makes it fit into the pot better.
Use this piece of foam to trace the other pieces. Cut those out and taper them as well.
Glue the styrofoam in.
You’ll probably have little gaps between the foam and the pot. Try your best to fill these in with the hot glue gun. The next step is to put sand into these pots so if there are any big holes the sand will fall through. The whole reason for the styrofoam here is so that you don’t have to fill up the whole pot with the sand. You only need enough sand for looks, so it’s better to fill the space with the styrofoam.
Take the fake plants apart. I was able to just pull them apart.
Cut them down until there’s about just one inch of stem.
Poke the plants into the styrofoam. Use your xacto knife to widen the holes if the stems are thick.
Arrange the plants.
Mix two parts sand to one part mod podge.
It should look like wet sand. The kind you build sand castles with.
Pour the sand into the pots and pat down with your finger.
For this succulent, I removed it first and then poured the sand in. Then I flattened the sand with my finger and THEN placed the succulent back in.
For this one I poured the sand in with the plant still in the pot.
For the last one I repeated what I did for the first one because I think it’s easier to place the sand when the plant isn’t in the way.
Let the sand dry, and you’re done!